Credit: Andrew Macpherson2019 has just begun, and with the New Year comes word that The Doobie Brothers are preparing their first original songs since their 2010 studio album, World Gone Crazy.
Singer/guitarist Tom Johnston tells ABC Radio, “We are definitely working on new material. I have a couple of songs that are already pretty much done. I just want to get band members playing on ’em.”
Johnston says he wrote the tunes with a musical friend from Los Angeles and laid down the tracks in the friend’s studio.
“[T]hey sound great,” he adds. “And I think that’s a good start. We need to do some more, obviously.”
Johnston reveals that The Doobie Brothers aren’t planning to record a whole album because, he maintains, “People just don’t buy albums anymore…I don’t think people are interested enough to make it worth your while to do it.”
To that end, Tom says, “We’re probably only gonna do like five songs…[I]f you put out four or five songs, and then…one or two get some attention hopefully, then that’s pretty much the whole idea of doing it.”
Having said that, Johnston insists that he and his band mates feel it’s important to keep making new music.
“It adds validity to the band,” the 70-year-old rocker says. “I don’t want to just forever be playing songs from yesteryear. I like to play new songs…it makes the band seem like it’s still kicking on all cylinders rather than trying to live in yesteryear.”
Johnston points out that since The Doobie Brothers have some time off in early 2019 before they start touring again, “it’s a great time to write more songs, get back in the studio and finish songs that we started up, and add some songs to it.”
Copyright © 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.